Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755), spent decades at Versailles and recorded everything he saw in his monumental memoirs: the Sun King’s court, the rivalries and intrigues of the nobility, the ceremonial splendour, and the long twilight of Louis XIV’s reign. No other document captures the social world of Versailles with such intimacy and forensic intelligence.
Proust revered Saint-Simon, and the memoirs remain one of the greatest works of observational life-writing in any language. Download the complete text as a free EPUB for a fascinating plunge into the world of the French court.